Beyond Black

Last updated

Beyond Black
Beyond Black.jpg
First edition (UK)
Author Hilary Mantel
LanguageEnglish
Genre Gothic novel
Publisher Fourth Estate (UK)
Henry Holt and Co. (US)
Publication date
2005
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint (Paperback)
Pages384 pp
ISBN 0-00-715775-4
OCLC 57382720

Beyond Black is a 2005 novel by English writer Hilary Mantel. It was shortlisted for the 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction. [1] [2]

Contents

Plot summary

The book's central character is a medium named Alison Hart who, along with her assistant/business partner/manager, Colette, takes her one-woman psychic show on the road, travelling to venues around the Home Counties, and providing her audience with a point of contact between this world and the next. On the surface, Alison seems like a happy-go-lucky woman, but this persona is only a mask she wears for her public. In truth, she is deeply traumatised by memories and ghosts from her childhood, and a knowledge that the afterlife is not the wonderful place her clients often perceive it to be. She spends much of the story trying to exorcise her demons, and by the end is ultimately able to overcome them.

Reception

It was generally well-received. On Metacritic, the book received a 75 out of 100 based on 18 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [3] In September/October 2005 issue of Bookmarks, a magazine that aggregates critic reviews of books, the book received a Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svgStar empty.svg (3.5 out of 5) with the summary saying," A story that normalizes clairvoyance shouldn’t work this well, but it does". [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lorrie Moore</span> American fiction writer (born 1957)

Lorrie Moore is an American writer, critic, and essayist. She is best known for her short stories, some of which have won major awards. Since 1984, she has also taught creative writing.

L'Ascension du haut mal, published in English as Epileptic, is an autobiographical graphic novel by David Beauchard.

<i>Runaway</i> (book) 2004 book of short stories by Alice Munro

Runaway is a book of short stories by Alice Munro. First published in 2004 by McClelland and Stewart, it was awarded that year's Giller Prize and Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.

<i>Slow Man</i> 2005 novel by J. M. Coetzee

Slow Man is a novel by the South-African writer J.M. Coetzee and concerns a man who must learn to adapt after losing a leg in a road accident. The novel has many varied themes, including the nature of care, the relationship between an author and his characters, and man's drive to leave a legacy. It was Coetzee's first novel since winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003. The novel was longlisted for the 2005 Man Booker Prize.

<i>Snow</i> (Pamuk novel) 2002 novel by Orhan Pamuk

Snow is a novel by Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk. It was originally published in Turkish in 2002, followed by an English translation by Maureen Freely that was published in 2004. The story encapsulates many of the political and cultural tensions of modern Turkey, including a real suicide epidemic among teenage girls, which took place in the city of Batman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hilary Mantel</span> British writer (1952–2022)

Dame Hilary Mary Mantel was a British writer whose work includes historical fiction, personal memoirs and short stories. Her first published novel, Every Day Is Mother's Day, was released in 1985. She went on to write 12 novels, two collections of short stories, a personal memoir, and numerous articles and opinion pieces.

<i>On Beauty</i> 2005 novel by Zadie Smith

On Beauty is a 2005 novel by British author Zadie Smith, loosely based on Howards End by E. M. Forster. The story follows the lives of a mixed-race British/American family living in the United States, addresses ethnic and cultural differences in both the USA and the UK, as well as the nature of beauty, and the clash between liberal and conservative academic values. It takes its title from an essay by Elaine Scarry—"On Beauty and Being Just". The Observer described the novel as a "transatlantic comic saga".

<i>Mothers and Sons</i> (book) 2006 short story collection by Colm Tóibín

Mothers and Sons is a 2006 collection of short stories written by Irish writer Colm Tóibín and published in 2006. The book was published in hardback by Picador, and each of its stories explores an aspect of the mother-son relationship. All take place in contemporary Ireland, except that the last and longest, "A Long Winter", takes place in Catalonia perhaps twenty years after the Spanish Civil War. The stories are as follows:

<i>The Night Watch</i> (Waters novel) 2006 historical fiction novel

The Night Watch is a dark, 2006 historical fiction novel by Sarah Waters. It was shortlisted for both the 2006 Man Booker Prize and the 2006 Orange Prize. The novel, which is told backward through third-person narrative, takes place in 1940s London during and after World War II. The storyline follows the fragmented lives and the strange interconnections between Kay, Helen and Julia, three lesbians; Viv, a straight woman; and Duncan, her brother, whose sexuality is ambiguous. The war, with its never-ending night watches, serves as a horrifying backdrop and metaphor of the morbidity that surrounds life and love.

<i>The Accidental</i> 2005 novel by Ali Smith

The Accidental is a 2005 novel by Scottish author Ali Smith. It follows a middle-class English family who are visited by an uninvited guest, Amber, while they are on holiday in a small village in Norfolk. Amber's arrival has a profound effect on all the family members. Eventually she is cast out the house by the mother, Eve. But the consequences of her appearance continue even after the family has returned home to London.

<i>Wolf Hall</i> Historical novel by Hilary Mantel

Wolf Hall is a 2009 historical novel by English author Hilary Mantel, published by Fourth Estate, named after the Seymour family's seat of Wolfhall, or Wulfhall, in Wiltshire. Set in the period from 1500 to 1535, Wolf Hall is a sympathetic fictionalised biography documenting the rapid rise to power of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII through to the death of Sir Thomas More. The novel won both the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2012, The Observer named it as one of "The 10 best historical novels".

<i>Summertime</i> (novel) Autofiction novel by J. M. Coetzee

Summertime is a 2009 novel by South African-born Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee. It is the third in a series of fictionalized memoirs by Coetzee and details the life of one John Coetzee from the perspective of five people who have known him.

<i>A Visit from the Goon Squad</i> 2010 book by Jennifer Egan

A Visit from the Goon Squad is a 2011 Pulitzer Prize-winning work of fiction by American author Jennifer Egan. The book is a set of thirteen interrelated stories with a large set of characters all connected to Bennie Salazar, a record company executive, and his assistant, Sasha. The book centers on the mostly self-destructive characters of different ages who, as they grow older, are sent in unforeseen, and sometimes unusual, directions by life. The stories shift back and forth in time from the 1970s to the present and into the near future. Many of the stories take place in and around New York City, although other settings include San Francisco, Italy, and Kenya.

<i>On Canaans Side</i> 2011 novel by Sebastian Barry

On Canaan's Side is a 2011 novel written by Irish playwright and novelist Sebastian Barry.

<i>Bring Up the Bodies</i> Historical novel by Hilary Mantel

Bring Up the Bodies is an historical novel by Hilary Mantel, sequel to the award-winning Wolf Hall (2009), and part of a trilogy charting the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, the powerful minister in the court of King Henry VIII. It won the 2012 Man Booker Prize and the 2012 Costa Book of the Year. The final novel in the trilogy is The Mirror & the Light (2020).

The 2012 Booker Prize for Fiction was awarded on 16 October 2012. A longlist of twelve titles was announced on 25 July, and these were narrowed down to a shortlist of six titles, announced on 11 September. The jury was chaired by Sir Peter Stothard, editor of the Times Literary Supplement, accompanied by literary critics Dinah Birch and Bharat Tandon, historian and biographer Amanda Foreman, and Dan Stevens, actor of Downton Abbey fame with a background English Literature studies. The jury was faced with the controversy of the 2011 jury, whose approach had been seen as overly populist. Whether or not as a response to this, the 2012 jury strongly emphasised the value of literary quality and linguistic innovation as criteria for inclusion.

<i>The Mirror & the Light</i> Book by Hilary Mantel

The Mirror & the Light is a 2020 historical novel by English writer Hilary Mantel and the final novel published in her lifetime, appearing two and a half years before her death. Following Wolf Hall (2009) and Bring Up the Bodies (2012), it is the final instalment in her trilogy charting the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, minister in the court of King Henry VIII. It covers the last four years of his life, from 1536 until his death by execution in 1540.

<i>Outline</i> (novel) Novel by Rachel Cusk

Outline is a novel by Rachel Cusk, the first in a trilogy known as The Outline trilogy, which also contains the novels Transit and Kudos. It was chosen by The New York Times critics as one of the 15 remarkable books by women that are "shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century." The New Yorker has called the novel "autobiographical fiction."

<i>Girl, Woman, Other</i> 2018 novel by Bernardine Evaristo

Girl, Woman, Other is the eighth novel by Bernardine Evaristo. Published in 2019 by Hamish Hamilton, it follows the lives of 12 characters in the United Kingdom over the course of several decades. The book was the co-winner of the 2019 Booker Prize, alongside Margaret Atwood's The Testaments.

Bella Bathurst is an English writer, photojournalist, and furniture maker. Her novel The Lighthouse Stevensons won the 2000 Somerset Maugham Award.

References

  1. "Beyond Black | Hilary Mantel | Macmillan". US Macmillan. Retrieved 6 May 2019.
  2. Mantel, Hilary (2005). Beyond Black. Harper Perennial. ISBN   9780007157761.
  3. "Beyond Black". Metacritic. Archived from the original on 8 July 2009. Retrieved 14 January 2023.
  4. "Beyond Black By Hilary Mantel". Bookmarks. Archived from the original on 8 September 2015. Retrieved 14 January 2023.